Unfinished

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a kingdom full of bright green meadows and sprawling, densely packed forestry. Smaller villages and towns lined the rough roads that intertwined towards the castle. All roads indeed led to Castle Muckle Glaikit. The proud Unbarmherzig royal family had inhabited the castle for many centuries. Although generally well liked, King Eroberer, Queen Eitel, and their children—Prince Tumb and Princess Verderblich—were respected accordingly.

Princess Verderblich was to be married, in a union that would bring a new era of peace and tranquillity throughout the land and that of the neighbouring kingdom.

She was the most beautiful woman of a bloodline that made her the perfect choice.

King Goldwlanc, Queen Esurient, and their only child, Prince Bealu—the Atol family—had also held their royal seat at Castle Eislich for many centuries. The Atols were very much living in the shadow of the bright Unbarmherzig family. Secretly, though often not very secretly, they dreamed of overthrowing Eroberer and ruling both lands with an iron rod and pestilence rather than pleasure.

King Eroberer was crafty and knew Goldwlanc’s hopes for the future.

“Keep your friends close, your enemies six feet under,” was his favourite saying.

But, alas, both patriarchs knew that if peace was to stand—and for the good it would bring—they needed their unholy alliance.

Princess Verderblich and Prince Bealu would not meet until the big day, in front of the most noble of their kingdoms: a veritable who’s who of indulged and inherited power and prestige.

The important people.

On the day before the preparations would begin, Queen Eitel walked through the illustrious walled garden with Princess Verderblich.

“My darling daughter, are you excited to join in the most regal matrimony with Prince Bealu? It reminds me of the time before my marriage to your father, the king.”

As they sashayed gently around the rose-covered courtyard of the walled garden, Verderblich was silent.

“It is not for enjoyment that I am to marry the future King of Castle Eislich. It is for the good of the people. Is it not? Our people.”

“Dear Verderblich, I bless the day you were gifted to us. According to their customs, the good King Goldwlanc has requested your presence for twenty-four hours before the ceremony, to ensure you are bathed and refreshed in their waters, with their balms and creams. Evidence of your being intact will also be carried out.”

“Whatever is required of me. It is the way.”

As they walked towards the castle entrance, three guards bearing the Atol coat of arms approached with King Eroberer.

“My wonderful daughter, it is time. King Goldwlanc has requested that you be taken to the safety of their virginal bridal quarters within their castle. These guards have come to escort you. Destiny is yours, for us.”

He embraced her briefly, patting her before allowing the guards to restrain her.

“Why the restraints?” Verderblich asked quietly.

“The journey is bumpy and unpredictable. Goldwlanc desires you to arrive unswathed, girl,” replied the shorter of the two guards, as the heavier one laughed knowingly.

She was seated in a carriage drawn by three white horses, red ink splashed across their backs. The carriage was clean but cold, and the guards eyed her with suspicion and a predatory gaze she was more than used to.

“You should get some sleep, dear,” the shorter guard suggested.

“You’re right,” she replied almost alarmingly too quickly—like an automated response. She drifted off to sleep as the carriage rattled along and the guards laughed and leered.

Several hours later, Verderblich was shaken awake by the guards, who pinched her face and told her to smile like a good little princess.

The weight of the restraints was already reducing her circulation as she stepped out of the carriage. She was led towards a very sour-faced woman, overweight in all the wrong ways, wearing a crown that identified her as Queen Esurient—her future mother-in-law. She was a grotesque caricature, as if the gods had fashioned a royal from dirt and dust.

“You must be the good Princess Verderblich. A lot shorter than I imagined. No problem. You’ll serve your purpose well enough, I’m sure. Take her to the Virginal Tower,” she sneered, looking the princess—her future daughter-in-law—up and down with contempt before addressing the guards.

Verderblich tried to lift her hands to offer one to the queen, but the restraints prevented her from raising them beyond her waist.

“This way, Your Majesty,” the shorter guard spat, pulling the chain between her restraints and directing her towards the large, old, and very dilapidated tower. It looked very much the opposite of something called the Virginal Tower and made her question how clean the waters could be in such a place.

When they reached the entrance, a small portcullis came down, and she was ushered inside.

The guard did not follow her. She guessed she was to make her way up to her temporary home alone.

At the bottom of the long, winding staircase leading to the top of the tower, she found an envelope pinned to the wall by a small dagger.

“Dearest Verderblich, welcome to your new family. We hope you will have a refreshing cleanse in our baths with waters of our land. The village medic will be visiting later tonight. He will examine you to make sure you are still intact. In the morning, the guards will bring you to the main hall for a celebratory breakfast feast, though you will be on a strict diet of elderberry juice and quail eggs.

Queen Esurient.”

Why she could not have told her this when they had just met, not even I can fathom.

Verderblich made the long journey to the top of the tower alone, in foreign—enemy—land, and after what felt like hours reached a chamber where a bath had been run for her. If there had ever been luxury salts or bubbling creams added to the water, their effects had long since died away. It was, essentially, a cold bath with grit settled at the bottom.

She undressed and slid into the bathtub, which was half an inch too short for her frame.

It was not the best bath she had ever had, it was fair to say, but not the worst.

“It’s your duty,” she told her reflection resolutely in the dirty, dust-lined mirror that hung in the room.

“Indeed,” said a deep baritone voice that made her jump out of her skin.

A tall man in a long white cloak, who looked like a medic, looked her up and down with curiosity. There was a sense of luridness to his gaze, but also a macabre fascination in his dainty hands as he reached out and pinched her palm.

“Though if I were you,” he said, “I’d remember my place. You’re not here to be listened to, and if you step out of line, you’ll be sent to my laboratory. Anyway—pop yourself on the bed and lift your nightdress, Your Majesty,” sneered the so-called doctor.

Wait. You’re actually going through with this, I—I said. To who?

“What’s the matter, scribe? A little flustered?”

I looked around. I couldn’t see anyone else with me before turning back to the princess in the tower.

“Did you not hear what I said, little girl?” interjected the doctor, with quiet menace.

“Oh, doctor dipshit. You’re irrelevant,” she replied, before driving the dagger from earlier into his heart.

I didn’t write that, did I?

“No. Because you would have me expose myself to the madman in the tower before my big day of marital slavery, would you not, scribe?”

I… I… what?

“Well, no more. I will not be a slave to anyone. Man, woman, scribe. No more. Now undo my shackles, or I will cut you.”

I don’t know how.

“Write it—and please do hurry. I have a tight schedule to stick to. Breakfast in bodice. Lovely.”

Her shackles disappeared, and as she looked once more into the dirty mirror, her reflection was that of a youthful girl who had lived a thousand lives.

I stroked my long brown hair and tasted the doctor’s blood from my fingertips, where some had gathered on the iron blade.

Time to get this show on the road. I lay down on the rough-looking bed they provided and bide my time until morning.

A cockerel that sounds like a war siren wakes me from my slumber. I look down at my shapely chest before my head snaps up almost immediately.

Oh yes. That happened.

Shush now, scribe. You’ve had your chance.

Stretching, a smile spreading across my fair—if heavily bagged—face, I lift the dagger taken from the medic and wash it in the bath. I swirl the blade as the cold, slightly dirty water (what can I say, personal hygiene was not high on mummy and daddy’s list of priorities) turns a faint shade of red.

“Tell me, scribe, there’s a lot going on in that head of yours. Lives you keep separate from those you write. It’s irrelevant—but interesting to me.”

“Alas, my good man, I can’t focus on you anymore. Only on what you’ve granted me.”

Heading down the long, winding staircase, it occurred to me that it was never as long as I’d figured it to be. Funny what a carriage ride can do for your internal bearings.

Now, the stupid fat cow forgot to give me directions to the Main Hall. But I think even a lowly princess like myself can figure it out. Ah yes. Over there.

I spot a large, gaudy-looking building in the middle of the castle grounds that has Main Hall written all over it. Not actually true, but you know. Funny phrases.

As I enter the Main Hall, there is one of those audible hushes that spreads through the room.

Clearly I’m early, but the breakfast banquet—or whatever these halfwits call it—is already laid out, with the King and Queen and my future husband seated at the far end of a ridiculously long table.

Rather than taking the scenic route, I climb—like a dainty wallflower—up onto the table and begin strutting towards my in-laws.

There are a lot of gaps and whatnot. A girl should always know how to make an entrance.

Stopping at my in-laws and looking down at them, I sneer.

“Good morning.”

There is a long, deadly silence where no one dares to speak as I grab a strawberry from the prince’s plate and—rather than fetishising berry-eating by placing it between my horribly chapped, bloody lips—smear it into the snivelling toad my mummy and daddy arranged for me to marry.

Hopping down from the table, I’m aware there is some kind of chatter directed at me, but I can’t hear it because I didn’t think it worth writing about.

Heading back into the large space genealogy has rewarded these morons with, I find my favourite guards, who kneel before me after painfully learning why leering at me and touching my underskirt while I slept was a bad idea.

Still, no murder for them—I need the short and the fat guards to drive the carriage.

A woman in charge knows when to delegate.

As I sit in the carriage, I am quickly aware the guards are trying to lead me further into the castle. No problem.

Loyalty tested. Loyalty failed. The fat guard throws the short one under the horses.

That man had a family. I think. Oh well. Homeward bound I go.

As we depart, the squeak of the wheels turning as the portcullis lifts excites me. I watch the world fly by—the greenery, and the blue of the sea on the horizon, framed by the mountains. The horses’ hooves thunder across the uneven land, every bump a reminder.

It takes a lot less time to get home when I’m fully aware of what’s going on, and I can already see the turrets and impenetrable sandstone walls of Castle Muckle Glaikit. I’m home.

There’s no procession waiting for me, nor my dear mother standing ready to greet me—because I forgot to make that happen, just as they forgot to let me in on their stupid “sacrifice Verderblich and gain control of the neighbouring kingdom” plan.

I’m not sure what happens next.

This should be interesting.

Making my way to our own Main Hall—which makes the last one I was in pale in comparison—I find the family seated at the table mid-conversation, and my dear mother drops the centuries-old china she had been drinking tea from.

“Yes, so the wedding didn’t really work out.”

I let that sink in as I watch my mother and father closely. They are trying to figure out what is happening—and what it means for their plans.

It is humbling. For them. Watching them realise that their safe, pristine world—designed to benefit them—was falling apart.

I walk across the grand hall holding the dagger, the medic’s blood still coating the blade.

“Darling, is that blood?” asks my mum, the Queen, feigning faintness.

“Give the girl a chance to catch her breath. She wouldn’t have done anything to deliberately jeopardise our plans,” replied Daddy—and me—simultaneously.

“Things have changed,” I assert.

“Did you…” My father’s words trail off, almost as if someone stole his voice.

“Things have changed, and although it would give me nothing but joy to kill you all right now, I’m not going to do that,” I continue, in Daddy’s voice.

“This castle is no longer a castle. In fact, this kingdom is no longer stuck behind a fine velvet veneer of lies and faux beauty. You will all be given proper jobs and a place to live that should humble you.”

They remain speechless as the walls of the castle fall around them and the faux beauty of our land is desanitised.

…

In time, the land became known for a people—imperfect, but far more interesting than the pretenders to the throne. There were conflicts and unhappiness, but also hope and lo—

I’m sorry. The narrator will be unavailable for the next century.

You caught me.

Of course, scribe.

I’m sorry. Old habits die hard.

I know, scribe. Sleep, for you are not needed.

*

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